XVII. Notes on the history of American text-books on arithmetic ..... XVIII. The teaching of astronomy in the primary and secondary schools XIX. Digest of laws relating to text-books, their selection and supply............ XX. Education in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines ..... XXI. Experimental study of children, including anthropometrical and psycho-physical measurements of Washington school children..... XXII. Education in the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Brazil .......... PART I. CHAPTER I. HISTORY OF THE GERMAN SCHOOL SYSTEM.' By DR. E. NOHLE, Berlin. CONTENIS.-Introduction. I. First part of the Middle Ages (700-1200 A. D.).—Ecclesiastical influence; convent and cathedral schools. 1. First beginnings. 2. Charlemagne. 3. Noted schools of that period. 4. Method of instruction. 5. Aristocracy and people. II. Second part of the Middle Ages (1200-1500).-Universities and "particular” schools. 1. Court education. 2. Universities; their origin. 3. German universities. 4. The "particular" schools. 5. Latin or classical schools in cities. 6. Schools for learning reading and writing. III. From 1309–1800.-Humanism in the schools of the learned. Establishment of schools for the people. Beginnings of the "Realschule" or modern high school. (a) The sixteenth century.-1. Humanism and its effect. 2. The Reformation. 3. Protestant universities. 4. The later classical schools. 5. The schools of the Jesuits. 6. Protestant public elementary schools. 7. Private schools. 8. Catholic public schools. (b) The seventeenth century.-1. National and modern education. Ratichins, Comenius, and the classical schools. 2. Modern French education; academies for the nobility. 3. Instruction in German; Duke Ernest (the Pious) of Gotha. 4. Private schools. 5. Catholic schools. (c) The eighteenth century.-Evolution of the university. 2. Gymnasia (classical schools) to the middle of the century. 3. The new humanism. 4. German school system; potent influences. 5. Francke and Frederick William I of Prussia. 6. Frederick the Great and his code of school regulations. 7. Other States of Germany. 8. Private schools. 9. Realschulen (modern high schools). This paper is a translation of a concise statement of the history of public and private education in Germany from the earliest records up to the present day. The work does not, like many other his tories, pay chief attention to theories and plans advanced by reformers, but sketches actual conditions for which documentary evidence is available. It touches upon pedagogical theories and reformatory plans of organization only when it can be proved that they have had perceptible influence upon the development of the system or any of its parts. The work is evenly balanced and noticeably just in its conclusions, hence it was thought proper to render it in English for insertion in this volume. The original appeared in Rein's Encyclopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, and found general commendation in the educational press. IV: The nineteenth century. The new humanistic classical high school. The system of modern high schools. The present public elementary schools. 1. Universities. 2. Classical schools. 3. Modern high schools and technological universities. 4. Combination of classical and modern high schools. 5. Advanced schools and burgher schools. 6. Public elementary schools up to 1860. 7. Later development since then. 8. Prospects. INTRODUCTION. The object of the following paper is to sketch the growth of the German school system from its origin through the different periods of its development. Only conditions which actually existed and for which there is documentary evidence available are considered. Pedagogical theories and plans of organization will be regarded only where it is obvious that they exerted decisive influence upon actual conditions and determined the structure of the school system. The history of education in Germany to the present time has to record the production of four distinct forms of schools-the university, the gymnasium, or, properly speaking, the classical high school; the Real and burgher school, or modern high school; and the elementary or common school. The latter is the general school, in which attendance is obligatory up to a certain year of age-generally to 14-for every child, unless it is attending a school providing for a higher kind of instruction. The pupils of these public elementary schools enter the ordinary-that is, the simpler-occupations, such as trades, for which more extended instruction, especially knowledge of foreign languages, is not necessary. The burgher schools and other secondary schools of low grade keep the pupil until his 16th year of age and give him an education fitted for a little higher employment in practical life. The gymnasium, realgymnasium, universities and polytechnica, represent, together with the professional study in these higher institutions, the most advanced courses of education. This higher education is clearly divided into a general or preparatory and a special or professional course. The former closes with the 19th year of life, the latter, as a rule, rarely before the 24th year. The classical high schools offer the preparation for all higher professions, the learned as well as the practical. They graduate their students at the age of 19 or 20, after a rigorous examination, which entitles the students to enter the universities and polytechnica, in which the attendance is, on an average, four years. In the following pages we shall consider how these different types of schools have developed, one after another and one out of the other, and how the course of instruction has changed in the different epochs of their existence to suit the demands of the times. The system of education of a country stands in the most intimate relation to the whole intellectual and economical life of the people. Political, religious, and social revolutions are never without a far-reaching influence on the methods and on the matter of instruction. The social order at a given epoch is reflected in the formation of the schools. In the same manner every enlargement of knowledge leads to an increase of the matter of instruction. Every new science of a general character seeks very soon its representation in the instruction of youth. The organization of the schools in every epoch, therefore, may be regarded as an attempt to convey the knowledge, immanent in that epoch, to the different ranks according to social position and general or professional needs of instruction. We have tried to state these general relations, and to characterize them in their proper places. I. FIRST PART OF THE MIDDLE AGES (700-1200). ECCLESIASTICAL SCHOOLS; CONVENT AND CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS. 1. The beginnings of the German school system are almost contemporary with the introduction of Christianity into the country. The Irish and Anglo-Saxon messengers of the faith who came to the continent about the fifth century had brought with the new faith also the taste for Roman culture, and had implanted both at the same time. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans (died 755) worked for a strong foundation of schools within the church as well as for the extension of Christianity. He himself was well acquainted with the traditional knowledge of his time, and clever in the art of teaching. Monks and nuns came at his request from England to Germany with the intention of propagating elementary and higher knowledge. It was of important consequence that he prescribed the rules of the religious order of Benedict to the monasteries founded by him. In the Benedictine monasteries little boys were received into the order for the purpose of educating them for the monastic life, which could best be done in earliest youth. For these boys, ordinarily offered at the altar of God at the age of 5 to 7 years (the so-called pueri oblati) instruction was necessary, and the church of that period was liberal enough to add the "profane sciences" as far as occasion and pecuniary resources allowed. It was of no less consequence that at the same time in the western Frankish Empire, Chrodegaug of Metz (bishop from 742 to 766) ordered for the whole clergy of his cathedral a common life, similar to that of the convent, and that this was imitated in many places. Being admitted as boys in these "cathedral communities," and often expected to enter upon ecclesiastical service, appropriate instruction was necessary; hence the spread of cathedral schools. 2. Charlemagne. These imperfect beginnings were greatly developed by Charles the Great. In pursuit of his policy, which turned with energy toward the extension and strengthening of the occidental church, his special attention was devoted to a better education of the clergy. That he himself esteemed intellectual education very highly added to his zeal. He tried to bring about a culture in his Frankish Empire similar to that which he had had occasion to observe in Italy; hence he surrounded himself with the foremost scholars of his time, |